Remote patrol

Remote Patrol

By SHARON GINN
Published May 26, 2006

NEWSMAKERS

Hall of Famer and Tampa resident Wade Boggs will take a quick drive to work Saturday: He'll serve as color analyst alongside announcer Mark Neely for the Big East tournament baseball championship game, to be aired at 1 p.m. Saturday from Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater. The irony: The majority of local TV viewers won't be able to tune in, because Bright House does not carry the year-old ESPNU college sports network.

Speaking of things most local viewers can't see: Former Rays manager Lou Piniella makes his regular-season debut with Fox as an analyst, though the game won't air on Fox in the Tampa Bay market. He'll call the Marlins-Mets game alongside Kenny Albert on Saturday; local viewers will see the Braves-Cubs (1 p.m., Ch. 13).

Area Verizon customers with high-definition service will be able to see the Marlins and Rays games being aired this season in HD by FSN Florida. The remaining 26 Rays and 50 Marlins HD games will be aired on Verizon channel 815. The games are still not available to about 1-million local Bright House customers.

ESPN's somewhat controversial series Bonds on Bonds is expected to go on hiatus after next week, when the episode commemorating Barry Bonds' 714th home run airs. That will make just 51/2 hours of airtime for a show that contracted for 10 hours of programming. "We didn't think he'd have hit only six homers at this point," producer Jonny Fink told MLB.com. "I'm really not sure what else there is to say after this."

Gators fans might want to check out ESPN's first-ever wedding, airing on the Mike & Mike in the Morning show today at 9 a.m. (TV and radio, ESPN2 and WHBO-AM 1470). University of Florida fanatics and Jupiter resident s Jason West and Catherine Bennett - alums who had planned to coordinate their wedding around the Orange & Blue spring game - won Mike & Mike's "Ultimate Sports Wedding" contest. They will be married live in ESPN's studios; Trey Wingo will serve as sideline reporter.

Sun Sports' UF installment of its Under the Lights spring football series premieres Sunday at 11 a.m., while the network's Lightning postseason special premieres Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

For the first time, the championship rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals will air in prime time on ABC (Thursday, 8 p.m., Ch. 28). Earlier rounds of the finals will air as usual on ESPN, also on Thursday (noon to 3 p.m.).

"It's going to take a lot of makeup to make these guys look good, myself included." - NBC golf reporter Roger Maltbie on the network's first-ever high definition golf broadcast, the 67th Senior PGA Championship, which airs Saturday and Sunday beginning at 12:30 p.m.

[Last modified May 26, 2006, 00:51:15]